Page 77 of The Sound Of Us

His body calms down gradually and his stiffened legs turn soft in my hand. And with his head turned to the side and his fists digging into the bed, he lets me slip on the underwear.

I rise as I glide the soft material up his calves and thighs and urge him to lift slightly so I can slip it over his hips.

When I’m done, I bend, bringing my face to his neck to press a kiss there. His face is still turned away, so I place my fingers to his cheek and try turning him to me. He won’t turn. So I try to convince him with soft nuzzles to his neck. My nose trailing up and down the side of his neck. My lips brushing his shoulders, my fingers against his neck.

It’s the tremble of his throat that tells me he’s crying. My chest tightens with compassion, fury and… love.

I inhale deeply with this realization. I love him. My connection with him runs too deep for it not to be true. I’m not in the habit of complicating things. Admitting this isn’t any kind of hardship.

As gently as I can, I manage to get him to face me. The tears fall without drama or effort. His face is blank while the tears fall. A soul falling apart inside a body too accustomed to pain to register it in his eyes or his face.

But then everything breaks. The floodgates are smashed wide open. Axel lifts his eyes to mine and bursts into tears. I drop to my knees again, pulling him to me. He hides his face in the crook of my shoulder, his body wracked with tears and sorrow.

He slides off the bed, onto his knees, and I tuck him inside my body. Our bodies—mine naked and his covered only by the silk panties—cling to each other and I hold him to me while he cries and cries and cries.

Axel’s sadness is so devastating that I find tears in my own eyes. While his tears pour into my chest, mine mix with his hair.

How could anyone harm this soft, beautiful human being? Why couldn’t I have met him ten years ago? I’d have kept him so safe.

The digital clock tells me we still have time, but even so, it won’t be enough. I need more than two hours to love this man. No amount of time in all eternity, even, would be sufficient for me to love Axel enough.

The minutes tick by on the digital clock and all I can do is hold him while he cries like he’s grieving. I don’t have the luxury of sound to honor his pain, so I listen to his body—pulling him even closer when his fingers dig into my forearm, rubbing along his spine when his body shudders against mine. Pressing my hand to his sternum when it seemed like his tears would choke him.

We stay like that for a long time while Axel cries for all the things I know nothing about.

And when his body begins to calm down, and he has enough strength to lift his face from my neck, I allow some space between our bodies. I wipe his tears gently, my thumb caressing underneath his eyes, across his cheekbones, massaging gently at his temples. He leans into my palms, his eyes closed, and then he places a soft kiss on the inside of my wrist.

Tears renew, but this time, he smiles through them, touching his four fingers to his chin and extending that hand to me. Thank you.

I bring those fingers to my lips, kissing each of them with the reverence this moment deserves.

Then, quietly, I lift him back onto the bed and help him into his sweats. My hands glide over his silk-covered ass and then, slipping between us in front, I caress his length through the silk material of the underwear.

He tries to look away again, but I don’t allow it this time. He doesn’t fight me. Instead, he peeks up at me, his smile shy and small. I smack those lips with mine, pulling a wide smile out of him and coaxing him into this forbidden lover’s kiss.

Chapter 43

Axel

Nobody tells you that the rivers of tears stuck inside you behind a great wall of shame and defeat could be the very thing that washes away the ugliness if only you’d let it out.

Eli’s chest is still wet with my rivers of tears. He doesn’t wipe them away and in some esoteric twist, it feels like I’ve become joined to him on some spiritual level through these tears. He takes my face between his palms. I’m so scared, so hopeful for what Eli might feel for me. So frightened of how in love with him I might be.

This might be the most humiliating moment of my life, sitting here with these panties on and crying like a baby, but Eli is watching my face, his eyebrows furrowed like he’s listening to me.

I’m ashamed that I’m the one that can hear, yet he’s the one listening to me like no one else has listened before. He’s listening to the words I cannot utter. He’s listening to my tears; to my unspoken sorrow.

He leads me to the kitchen in the dark. Not once did he question why I needed the darkness. My terror that Frank will find out had long crossed over into the realm on psychotic by the time I made the plan to go over to Mrs. Dalton.

Now, I watch him from the bar stool at the counter while he stands at the microwave in the dark, warming up food.

I have two choices: I leave Frank and go away with Eli, or I stay here and cheat on Frank for the duration of Eli’s stay. Not being with Eli isn’t an option.

Eli brings the food to us. I love how he makes us eat from the same plate. Even when we’re eating, it seems, we needed to be connected. My marriage is a mountain separating us so the least we can have is this simple sharing of food.

There’s also only one fork. I smile up at him when he brings his stool so close to mine we might as well have both sat on one.

It’s not pasta today, to my surprise. It’s sticky rice and chicken with diced vegetables and a sauce that produces the most incredibly delicious aroma. Eli brings a fork to my mouth. I open, deliberately deciding to put all accusing thoughts about us out of my mind. These moments are right. They are meant to be.

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